Characters are not created by writers. They pre-exist and have to be found.

Spoilt pleasure is a sad, unseemly thing; you can only bury it.

Nothing arrives on paper as it started, and so much arrives that never started at all. To write is always to rave a little-even if one did once know what one meant

What must novel dialogue . . . really be and do? It must be pointed, intentional, relevant. It must crystallize situation. It must express character. It must advance plot. During dialogue, the characters confront one another. The confrontation is in itself an occasion. Each one of these occasions, throughout the novel, is unique.

I pity people who do not care for Society. They are poorer for the oblation they do not make.

Yes, writing a novel, my boy, is like driving pigs to market - you have one of them making a bolt down the wrong lane; another won't get over the right stile.

Who is ever adequate? We all create situations each other can't live up to, then break our hearts at them because they don't.